Press In: The Role of God in Our Spiritual Growth || Pastor Adam Mesa

At this time, we're going to jump in a word

of God. So if you have your Bible, would you

turn to Philippians chapter three. We're in a series called

press On. What does it mean to press on? Not

only throughout the year, but in our lives as life

would come and not always meet our expectations. If you

missed last week, Pastor Aaron launched our series absolutely incredibly,

and so if you follow our YouTube channel, you can

go and listen.

To it and catch up with us.

If you want to know a little bit more about

Pastor Apostle Paul's history and where we find ourselves in

the Book of Philippians. That message is absolutely incredible and

you want to check it out. Sermmertitles called crush It.

We find ourselves talking about part two in the next verses.

So we're in Philippians chapter three. We know that the

individual writing the letter is the Apostle Paul, and he's

gone through a lot of stuff in his life. He's

gone through health crisis, he's gone through people crisis. He's

been shipwrecked, he's been imprisoned, he's been beaten.

Think think of it.

He's gone through it as a believer, and so he's speaking,

and he's writing a letter to individuals who similarly like

me and you, that will face trials, will face hardship,

and will face friction as believers. And he's encouraging the

church to stay in the race and not give up.

Don't give up your walk with Jesus, don't give up

your hope with Jesus, and don't give up your love

for Jesus.

That's where we find ourselves.

So here we are in Philippians, chapter three, verse fourteen.

And fifteen, and we'll read this together.

So if you're ready with you stand for the honor

of reading God's word, if you're new to our church

or just visiting. The reason why we stand is because

we believe God's word carries honor. And so if a

politician or a president, or a king or queen walked

in this room, we would stand in honor. And we

worship the king of kings name Jesus. And so when

we share the word of God, we just want to

stand in honor.

That's all it is. And so here's what it says.

Paul says, I pray on toward the goal for the

prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,

Let those of us who are mature.

Think this way, and if anything you think.

Otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let

us hold true to what we have attained. Amen, you

may be seated. Let's talk about this for a few moments. Here,

have your Bible. You can keep it open if you

like taking notes.

I just want us to.

Engage a little bit with what the Apostle Paul is doing.

There's kind of three standout things that he says, and

I'll give context to it. Number one is he encourages

the church to press on. What he also talks about

is he talks about maturity. And then the last thing

he talks about attaining. These three things are connected that

we're going to see today. And what the Apostle Paul

is trying to do is he's trying to get you

and I to recognize that the Christian life and the

Christian walk is not just a sprint, but rather it's

a marathon. It's not something that you do in a

season because it's popular, or because you need God for something,

or it's an exciting thing.

You do it because you're waiting.

For the day that Jesus calls you to heaven, and

you stand before God face to face. And so as

the Apostle Paul is speaking, he's trying to get us

to recognize that you and I need to make this

decision to follow Jesus, not because of what it temporarily

supplies us, but because you look forward to the day

that you stand before God. You close your eyes on

this earth, you open your eyes before God, and God

looks at you and says, well.

Done, good and faithful servant.

And the apostle Paul is speaking to people who are

looking at life and are saying, Paul, but this is difficult.

This life is difficult.

As we see, there are natural disasters, there is brokenness,

there are often wars, there are famines, there are people involved,

there's bad leadership involved.

There's many things that you see.

And these individuals are living in an age similarly like

we can find ourselves. But here's what the apostle Paul does.

The first thing he says, he says, as for him,

He's gonna press on till Jesus calls him home. But

here's where it's important to note. When it comes to

the language that Paul writes in. He writes in the

language of Greek. That's what our New Testament is in

Old Testaments in Hebrew, New Testaments in Greek. And what

happens is the majority that would be that way. But

what happens is is he uses words for a reason.

So unlike the English language. When we talk in English,

it's actually fairly simple. So if I were to say, hey,

continue to press on, you would think that I'm just

saying keep going. But when the writers write in Hebrew

and Greek, they actually write in more symbols than they

do in the word itself. So here's the Greek word

that the apostle Paul uses when he talks about attained.

He uses a word called diaco, which the word diaco

is actually a track and field terminology. If you've ever

ran track and field. When I was high school. In

high school, I know I don't look very fast, but

when I was younger, I was fast, and I was

very very skinny when I was in high school, and

I ran varsity track and field, so that you know

it's legit, Okay, I want just a walk on top seven,

all right? So I ran varsity track and field. Josh,

who runs our production team, he was on JV I

was on varsity when we were both in high school.

And uh, I know he's in the back and he

can hear me do saying that right now. But I

ran track and field, and there was a famous thing

that happens in track and field.

It's famous.

It's whether you're doing a marathon, whether you're doing a

three k, or whether you're in some type of track

competition and you're running in English, in track we called it.

We call it kick. And what the kick is is

it's the last moments of a race when you're about

to reach the finish line. And there's something that separates

good runners, great runners from mediocre runners is a great

runner tends to have an incredible kick.

And you'll see this runner.

He starts at second to the last, but he has

an incredible diaco. He has a great kick, which means

at the last moment to the finish line, he doesn't

slow down, he doesn't lose his pace. He actually increases

his pace. He actually increases his speed.

He actually has enough strength.

To actually pass the competition. And so when the apostle

Paul says I press on, he actually uses what we

would say is a kick. So if I was a

modern day track and field, and I was talking about

staying the course of following Jesus. I would say that

I'm gonna use my kick until my very last breadth.

In other words, that when life gets hard and the

race gets challenging, and it gets difficult, and my body

aches and my mind is being weary and I want

to give up, I'm not only gonna cross the finish line,

but towards the end of my life, I'm actually gonna

exert all the energy I have to stay faithful to God.

That's what Paul's saying. So he's not just saying, oh,

come on, keep up.

He's saying, when I.

Follow Jesus, even in the tough times, I press forward,

I press on, I diaco and in life when life

gets difficult.

What he begins to say is he says, when.

Life gets difficult, I press until Jesus calls me home.

So it's not temporary, it's not situational, it's not just

for a season. It's just not for an era of

his life. It is till the day that he stands

face to face with Jesus. So when he's having his

prayer time with God and he's with the lawyer said,

how long do I have to continue to do this?

He finds solitude to say, I continue to do this

till I stand face to face with Jesus. I don't

walk away from this till God calls me home. I'm

not giving up. I'm not walking away from God. I'm

staying in the race. A couple of years ago, it

was probably about four or five years ago. It was

definitely more than five years ago. Was before COVID, and

we had our Saturday night service. As you heard from

Pastor Nathan, we're starting our Saturday service back up in February.

Well, we had our Saturday night services back then.

And my dad, Pastor Diego at the time, he had

this really nice classic car that was a Mustang. It

kind of looked like the car from john Wick, the

Mustang from john Wick. It wasn't exactly that, but it

looked very similar.

So it was really nice.

And there would be days that I would be at

my dad's house and he really wouldn't drive it all

that much. I don't get the concept of you classic

car collectors that you get the cars to stare at

in the garage and not drive it.

That case, just buy a hot wheel.

It's ten dollars, you get carry it in your pocket.

You don't even have to go to the garage. It

don't make no sense to me. So I'd see this

car in the garage and I'd be like, hey, Dad,

just let me take it around the block. And you

know when someone thinks that you're stupid is when is

when they just don't answer, like when they give a

yes or no. That's that's actually like a oh okay,

yes I can or no I can't. He just would

stare at me when I asked the question, almost like

how do you even have the audacity to ask to

drive the car?

And so for about a year I'd be like, man, Dad,

that car looks so lonely in the garage.

You know. I walk by and she was like, oh,

I wish someone would drive me around around the block.

And he would just stare at me. And so some

days I'd just flat out that, man, can I drive

the Mustang? Please? He'd be like, you ain't driving this car.

I'm like, wow, man, fine. So it's one Saturday. He

calls me, He say, hey, Adam, where you at? So?

Well, I'm at the church right now.

He goes, Okay, he takes a deep breath and he says, uh,

I need you to do me a favor.

I said, yeah, what do you need?

He said, well, I'm with my Mustang right now and

I'm running errands.

And he was actually on Milliken.

And Foothill and he says, I locked my keys in

the car, and the Triple A guy says he's about

an hour away, forty five minutes to an hour to

unlock to get the keys, and I actually have to

preach at the church in thirty minutes.

And so he goes number one.

I have no way to get to the church, but

I got to get to the church to preach. Can

you come and wait for the Triple A guy give

me your car and then you drive my car straight

to the church. When the guy opens up the car,

I said, well, I think I could do that, and so.

I go down.

He's at one of the golf stores down on Foothill.

I go down, I meet him, he leaves. I wait

for the Triple A guy and he says, now, when

you get the keys, just go straight on foot Hill

and go straight to the church. I said, absolutely, you

got it.

You got it.

The guy opens up the car. I get the keys, Man,

I start that thing up, roll down that window. You know,

gen Z don't know what I'm doing right now. I

roll down, I roll down the window. I roll down

the window and I look at the clock and it's

still about an hour till service gets out. And so

I said, I got fifty five minutes, so I gotta

get to the church. And so sure enough, man, I'm

down on arrow, I'm going up Archibald. I'm at stoplights.

Guys are coming down there, rolling down their window. They're like, yo,

is that your car. I'm like, sure is, Man, that's

a nice car. I'm like, I know, man, this is

why hard work will get you. Work hard, get one

these one day.

I'm just man, drove that thing for forty five minutes.

I roll up to the church.

Church is getting out.

My dad starts walking out and he says, you just

got the car open.

I said, yeah, you know, triple A and.

Give you one time and takes an hour.

You know, I was waiting like two hours, and he

was like, oh, man, thank you so much.

But here's what I recognize is sometimes all it takes

is just one call and it'll get you everything that

you've been praying for. Man, one call, change it off

for me and for the apostle. Paul, he says, I'm

not giving up till God calls me home. He said,

until I get the call. Has God called you home?

Are you still breathing? Are you still alive? Are you

still have breadth in your life? Then listen, God hasn't

called you home yet, so there's no reason to give up.

I could have thought one day, oh man, I'll never

drive that car.

I love it.

But instead, one day I just got the call, and

I was like, oh man, I'm ready, and there will

be a day that God will call you home. But

will he call you home and find yourself running giving

that kick? Or will he find you saying God, I

gave up like two years ago, God, I walked away

last summer, or God, last week is just too hard

and I just I just gave it all away. Will

you continue to run the race until God calls you home?

The beautiful thing is, too is what happens if you

show the verse. Originally, what Paul begins to do is

he says, I press on till the upward call. And

then he says this let those of us who are

mature think this way. In other words, the person that

stays in the race till the end shows that they

have maturity, that they're mature. And a lot of times

we have to allow God to mature our walk. And

what God is trying to do is he's trying to

mature you in on and so the things that we

often encounter, the things that we often face, the fire

we often have to walk through, it's not because God's

not available, or not because God's not there. It's because

he's trying to create some maturity. Great soldiers are not

individuals who just stay in practice. A great soldier is

someone who is fought in war and has proven and

come out of it, and we say, man, I'm scared

to mess with that guy. The enemy is not scared

of someone that practices being a Christian. It's somebody that

lives to be a Christian that follows Jesus. It's not

someone that just comes to boot camp on Sundays and

takes a few notes. It's on Monday through Friday when

they're in war and you're doing battle. That's what matures you.

Oh man, I've been coming to church. Why haven't I

been developed yet? Well, that's not what builds maturity. That's

an element of practice, that's an element of preparation. But

that's not testing. God's test is not whether you can

go to church every Sunday.

I know it's hard.

I know there are like games that play, and I

know there's like concerts that happen. I know in the

summers the beach is nice. But testing is not whether

you can listen to worship music or go to church.

That's preparation. Testing is that person you cannot stand. Testing

is the difficult season of marriage you may be facing.

The actual place of testing is the place with your

children that you may experience, or at your workplace where

you may be stretched and challenged. It's the places where

God is actually trying to call you out. That's what

it means to be a Christian. It means to call

out one the one who God has called out of darkness.

And so God will often allow this preparation phase right now,

but it's not the testing place.

God's trying to build maturity.

You know.

Right here, I have two avocados in my hand.

And if you're like me, I'll put avocados on anything, Okay,

I'll love avocados all right, And so, but one of

the things that makes me upset is if I go

to a restaurant and the avocado is cut and it's

like on my chicken bowl or it's on something and

it looks good, but the moment I start eating it,

it's like as hard as a rock. And so I

have two avocados right here, and from your position, you

may be able to tell, or you may not be

able to tell. On the outside, they relatively look exactly

the same. If I hold it up and you don't

touch it or anything like that, you really wouldn't know

the difference between the two. But what happens is the

moment I grab it and the moment I start feeling it,

what happens is is, well, one.

Is rock hard where the other is actually soft.

And then what can actually happen more is when I

start cutting into it.

Well, what happens is I got two right here.

Is as I cut into it, well, sometimes you can

tell the difference, but other times you can't.

But like you and I is when I want.

To tell if it's ripe or it's mature, I give

it a little squeeze. Oh, that one that's ready to go,

that one's ripe, that one's mature. What happens is now

I could take this, I give this a little squeeze, like,

oh wow, that's a lot harder.

I don't want to eat that.

I don't want to use this at all until it's

gained enough maturity, because if I use this and I

cut this, it's actually wasteful. Nobody wants to eat this.

Nobody wants to use it. So the best thing to

do would be that I never cut this. If it's hard,

then I actually have to wait until it reaches maturity.

I gotta wait until it gets ripeness. And there's a

lot of times in your walk with faith you're wondering

where God is at. Well, the reality is is you're

in a ripening season. You may still be too hard.

Your heart may still be too hard, your words may

be too harsh still, your faith may be too hard still.

But when you become soft and you become tender, when

you become usable, what happens is is your life the

juice is worth the squeeze. It is when we find

ourselves faithful to God and we find ourself being used

by God. And the difference between you could tell a

ripe avocado and a non rife is actually the ripe one.

It's a little bruised, it's soft, and the process of

its transportation, it's gone through some things. And when I

go when I may not want that in an apple,

but when I go to the grocery store and I

feel it a little soft already, I go, oh, that's

not a problem.

I can eat. I can eat that.

That's no problem. A little soft spot right there. I'm

good with that. What I don't want is I don't

want the hard one, because I don't want to wait

three weeks until this thing is ready. And so the

difference is in God's maturity that he's trying to build

in us. Is he's trying to ripen you and I.

He's trying to prepare us where the reality is. Because

what happens is is when you've reached the right maturity,

when you're actually squeezed, when your faith is squeezed, when

you actually got to use your walk with Jesus, something

will actually come out. But there's times I'll go to

Chapol and ask for limes and It'll be the hardest

limes I've ever had in my life, and I'll squeeze

them and I will get no juice out.

Of them, and I think.

To myself, whoever cut these limes, shame on you because

you made me think.

On the outside it looks fine, But the moment.

I squeeze that thing.

What little spurt of juice comes out? Like I don't

want this? Nothing comes out of it.

It looks good on the outside, but when you actually

squeeze it, when you actually.

Use it, nothing comes out.

And in my walk with Jesus, in my maturity, that

as I press on, what I want to happen is

when my faith is squeezed, I actually want something to

come out. I don't want to be empty. I don't

want my prayers to be empty. I don't want my

thoughts to be empty. I don't want my relationship with

God to be empty. So therefore, in our walk, we

have to recognize that sometimes God has you and I

in a maturing phase.

How do we know that?

Biblically well and Jesus his ministry, He walked up to

a fig tree.

It looked good on the outside.

He expected it to have fruit, and it didn't because

the fig tree all it did was have a cross

around its neck. It did a few posts a week

on social media about Bible versus, but it had no

actual fruit. Its actual life was not God fearings. Actual

life did not follow God. And so the tree on

the outside, it had the right cross on its necks,

it did the right posts. But on Friday night you

couldn't find no fruit. On Saturday night, there's no fruit

to be seen. On Monday morning at work, it's got

no fruit. And Jesus walks up to this fig tree

and he goes, no fruit will ever bear on this

because it tricked me.

It made me think it would have fruit, and it didn't.

And so what happens is the Apostle Paul shows us

what maturity is. Here's the first thing, if you're taking notes,

and we'll go through these relatively quickly, is maturity's actually

a mindset. It starts with our he says it. In

verse fifteen to A. He says, let those of us

who are mature begin to think this way. Mature people

think differently and act differently. I have a son that's

six years old that'll be seven this year, and I

have another son that's going to be four years old

in a few months. And I expect different things from

my first grader than I do for my three year old.

They have different weights, they have different responsibilities. Many of

you guys have teenagers, and your teenagers operate different than

my six year old, I hope, so they have more responsibility,

they have more expectations. Why Because as they grow in stature,

we also expect that they grow in maturity. My three

year old sometimes gets away with calling people a poopoo head.

My six year old, he's getting a straight tap to the.

Back of the head if he calls someone a poopoo head.

These are real life examples. It's a conversation. We got

to talk to our boys every single day. But there's

different expectations. Why Because I expect that the longer that

they are alive, and the older that they get, and

the more that they grow in stature, I expect that

their mindset is different. In the same way God expects

of us as his children, that as.

You grow in your walk and your.

Faith, he expects that our language would change. He expects

that our thinking will change. He expects that our attitude

will change. He expects that our walk will change. Why

Because you are getting older and hopefully your walk will

begin to be more effective. That's why the apostle Paul says,

if you want to press on, then have maturity and

think this way, not to give up because you're getting

older in your faith. There's a story of an old

lumberjack and a young lumberjack. Both of them were set

out to set up some fire for the winner getting

they were working on cutting up wood, and so they

both walk outside and they have a bunch of wood

and for the next hour they're gonna cut wood. And

so what happens is is the older lumberjack he sits

down with his axe for about thirty minutes. The young lumberjack,

on minute one, he just starts cutting wood right away.

At the end of the hour session, the younger lumberjack

looks at the older lumberjack and he says, how is

it possible that you were sitting down for half of

the time, but at the end of this you have

more wood than I had. And the older lumberjack looked

at him, and he said, because for the first thirty minutes,

I was sharpening my axe, while your axe just was

dull when you started. And he said, so by time

I started cutting, I was more efficient because I had

a sharper ax. And what he began to teach the

young Lumberjack is it's not just about your effort. It's

about your mindset and your maturity on what it is

that you're trying to tackle, what it is that you're

trying to accomplish. And the Word of God says that

it's like to like a sword and our Bible. If

you want this thing to be sharp, it's not just

about how much time you spending it like the young Lumberjack, Well,

I spend two hours in my Bible? Well is it

sharpening your life?

Though?

When you're done reading it? Does your attitude look different?

Does your walk look different? Does your habits look different?

Does your language look different? Because if you want an effectiveness,

it's not just about owning an axe, owning a sword

and saying, well, I'm swinging it. I'm going to church

on Wednesday, I'm going to church on Sunday, going to.

The Saturday prayer. Once a month, joined a neighborhood group.

I may even lead a neighborhood group. What's going on?

And it's like, okay, three four days out of the week,

you got something going on for an hour and a half.

Let's talk about the twenty two other hours in that day.

Let's talk about the Monday you aren't at church. Let's

talk about the Tuesday you're at home by yourself. Let's

talk about the Thursday that that person cut you off

on the two ten and you thought no one was looking.

Let's talk about.

The waitress that you engaged with on Friday that got

your order wrong.

Let's talk about your neighbor whose dog.

You can't stand and what you've been saying about them

or saying to them.

Let's not just talk about your acts.

Let's talk about how sharp it is in your life

that it has matured you. So it's not always about

how much time we're around God or spending time with God.

How effective is that time?

How is it changing your mindset?

Oftentimes I find myself like the younger Lumberjack, and I

just want to compare how much effort I put against

other people.

But that's not what it's about.

It's not about effort, and we don't just get an

a for effort. We actually have to do more than that,

and we have to actually do the work to allow

God to change our walk and change our life. Here's

ways that the Lord will try to mature you on

your daily basis.

I have a small list of ten things. Here's some

things the Lord will do.

Number one, The Lord will mature you by giving you

opportunity to walk in forgiveness. Some of you are being

given that opportunity right now as we speak.

You have the opportunity to forgive.

God will give you an opportunity to manage your anger,

to deal with how angry and upset you find yourself

on a daily basis.

God will give you an opportunity to mature how you.

Speak, what comes out of your mouth, what type of

belief system have, what type of faith do you have,

what type of hope do you have? Or even the

other things will come out of it and blossom out

of those things. God will give you a opportunity mature

you by time spent with God. God does want you

to spend time with God. Don't let me try to

say that that's not a good thing. Spend thirty minutes

with the Lord, spend an hour with God. God wants

you to spend those habits. God also is giving you

ways to mature to be in stewardship to handle our

finance as well. God cares about how we handle our finances.

He will mature you in a way to handle your finances.

The sixth thing is God is gonna help and mature

you by overcoming temptation. He wants you to be able

to walk differently and help you overcome the temptations and battles.

And it's not predicated on your strength, It's predicated on

God's strength. So he wants to help mature you and

how you overcome. He wants to help mature us in

the way that we love love without contingency. It's easy

to love those who love us, but it's hard to

love those who don't love us, or who may love us,

but it's difficult to love back. That's where God will

stretch you. God will stretch you and mature you in

being unified, unified in your family, unified in your heart,

unified in your faith, unified in your church.

God wants to stretch us to be unified.

What we're seeing in Los Angeles with many of the churches,

we're seeing many churches not do what they're doing to

make their churches name great, but to make Jesus's name great.

That's a unity.

That's what God loves, and that's what Jesus loves. That's

what give God's glory. But that's what Satan hates. Satan

hates a unified people, he hates a unified marriage, he

hates a unified family, and he hates a unified church.

God will mature you in that way. God will mature us,

like Pastor Aaron talked about last week through sufferings, Through

suffering that God will give you the right cuts and

the right bruises and the right places to ripen you

and strengthen you. And then lastly you can submit there

whatever you think, where is God maturing you in your

walk with him? You fill that in For me, I

fill it in if you've recently listened to our Beyond

the Letter podcast.

One of the reasons ones we've done.

I feel like the Lord has challenged me in twenty

twenty five to do more of a bolder evangelism, share

my faith more boldly in twenty twenty five. So I

feel like that's where God's challenging me. I share my

faith every single day, but there are times that I

know God is telling me to talk about Jesus, and

I think to myself when they're busy, or you know,

we're out in public and I don't want to it,

and I come up with excuses because I'm actually.

More of an introvert than i am an extrovert.

But the reality is I felt God say, Adam, I

want to stretch you in this next season. And so

for me, it's evangelism. For you, it may be something

else where. Is God maturing you right now in this season.

I'll tell you this.

He is trying to mature us. He is trying to

get us to continue to press on in our faith.

Here's the second thing that maturity will do. Maturity will kill.

Monuments in your life.

You can also call them idols, these monuments, these idols,

these things that we place up that detract us, that

derail us, that pull our attention away from God. And

what will happen is Apostle Paul gives hope to those

who have built idols, gives hope to those who have

built monuments in their life. For you, it may be.

Something that you watch. It also may be something that

you do. It may be.

Something that you hope, and it may be something that.

You love that you know isn't good for you.

And you build these monuments up, you build these idols up,

and it gets in between you and God. But the

apostle Paul, he gives you hope because he says, and if

any of you think otherwise, in other words, if you

don't think you're mature enough to continue to press on

in your faith, he says, what happens is if you

stay in the race, God will reveal that also to you.

In other words, if you don't give up and you

don't have the strength, God will not only give you

the strength, but he will open your eyes to give

you the ability to stay in the race. Don't walk away,

don't give up. He's speaking to the critic in this moment.

The critic says that, well, it's easy for you to say,

the apostle, Paul, you saw Jesus face to face, and

you walk with him for three years. It's easy for you.

And he says, listen, it's okay to say that you're

weak right now. If you stay in the race, God

will reveal it to you. He'll reveal himself completely to you.

Will you stay in it long enough for God to

help you kill the monuments. What happens is, if you

read the book of Exodus, is as the children of

his are leaving Egypt. We all famously know this story.

Moses goes up to the mountain of Mount Sinai to

get the ten Commandments from God. And what happens is

because he's two way up there too long. The children

of Israel go to his brother Aaron, and they say,

Erin Moses hasn't returned.

He must be dead.

God isn't answering our prayers. We're gonna give you some gold,

And why don't you build a cat for us so

that we can worship it and hopefully it could give

us some direction. In other words, they build a monument,

they build an idol because they can't see what God

is working behind the scenes.

And there are a lot of times because God.

Is working behind the scenes of your life that we

get impatient that we just begin to build monuments and idols.

Say Well, if I can't see God, I'll just I'll

do this. If I can't see God, I'll just get

in a relationship I know I shouldn't be in. If

I can't see God, I guess I'll just start engaging

and drinking every single day. Again, Well, since I can't

see God and he's not fixing this marriage, man, I'll

just I'll go answer that coworker's call again.

And what happens is because we don't see.

God actively working on our time. We build idols and

monuments like the children of Israel. But if you know

that story, you know how it ends.

What happens.

They go through forty years of deserted wandering, not because

God wanted it to take them through that season, but

because they didn't want to press on.

They didn't want to press on, so therefore.

They gave up and they went to the easiest thing

that was next to them.

They came from Egypt.

They saw the Egyptians worship other gods all the time,

and they said, well, that's in front of us, let's

just do that.

But if you know the story of Egypt, you know

where they're false.

Idol worship got them, got them seven plagues. And Israel

did not think because a lot of times we care

more about what's in front of us than rather what

God is doing behind the scenes. And so stick on

long enough, and what happened. God will help you kill

those idols that you build. And the last point is

this is what will happen is maturity will build mission

in your life.

If you stay in the game long enough.

What will happen is as we seek purpose, and we

seek direction from God is God will begin to give

you answers and a mission for what you're led to do,

what God has called you to do. And God will

give you space to use your testimony to help other people.

And there are a lot of times that God is

maturing you and you and I and God has us

in a season is because He wants us to help

lead someone else out of their own desert, out of

their own wilderness, out of their own fire. And if

you ask God the question, and you want to say, God,

use me, God give me purpose. God, I'm available to you,

then be careful with that because oftentimes the Lord will

do it. He will use you, but he may not

use you in the way that you thought it was.

He'll use it in a way that he knew that

would help people. I want you to see this. In

verse sixteen, it says, this only let us hold true

to what we have attained. What I've already shared before

was the words often that Paul uses in the Greek

and many other writers in the New Testament is it's

more of a picture than it is an actual word.

So we may use the word attain as hey, can

you go get that limit for me, and I come

and I go, Oh, I attained it. I got it

for you. But what the actual word attained means, he says,

only let us hold true to what we attain. What

he says is he's actually saying the word attend means

to arrive somewhere before other people, to get to a

place before others have. In other words, what he's saying

is he saying, if you follow Jesus, if you're in

the race and you get tired and you get weak

and you.

Get attacked, he says, you need to hold true to the.

Fact that God is taking you somewhere before others so

that you can help other peop He says, you've a right.

He said, don't look at your left and right, because

you may be where you're at because God has you

there before other people. So he says, we've attained this

because we're here as believers before other people, before others.

There's a famous track runner and he's also a marathon runner,

and he ran a few decades ago, but he was

one of the most famous Paralympic runners named Henry Winocchio.

And what he did is he comes from Africa. He's

a blind runner, he runs track and field and marathons,

and he's a very gifted fast runner. But as you

can see, he has a disability. He has a blindness,

and so his childhood best friend, Joseph, actually runs the

race alongside of him. And what he does is he

ties a piece of rope to Henry and as they're

running the race, whether it's out in the streets or

it's on the train.

Is he uses the rope to make sure that.

Henry stays inside of the race, stays inside.

Of his lanes.

And Henry has sent he has broken so many racing

records over the years, and that's what he's very famous for.

But what a lot of people don't talk about is Joseph.

You see what Joseph does. His running partner who leads him,

is every day before the race that they're gonna run,

Joseph by himself without Henry runs the race by himself

so that he knows how the track and how the

course is.

And so what Joseph does if.

They're running on a Sunday on Saturday, if he's racing

three miles, five miles, ten miles, what Joseph does is

he runs the race by himself. So that by time

the next day he's leading Henry, he can fully focus

on leading Henry because he's already ran the race that

Henry is running. And a lot of times you and

I we want to be Henry, and we just want

a rope tide and we want to be led.

But a lot of us, God will call you to

be a.

Joseph, and he will have you run a race before

others run that race. And if you want to lead

people and help guide people out of darkness, and you

want to help your neighbor, and you want to help

that family member that you desperately pray for, you want

to help that neighbor, you want to help that coworker,

what happened is God will often call you to run

the race before they run it. He wants to give

you that testimony so that as you guide someone else,

you could say, I've ran this race. I know how

it feels, I know how tiring it is, I know

how you want to give up. But I ran this already,

and I've finished the cross line. I've crossed the finish

line once, and so if I can do it, if

I can go through it, you could go through it.

And so we have to recognize that if you want

to lead, you're gonna need to arrive to places before others.

If you want to be in a place of leadership, well,

oftentimes God will call you to a place before other people.

So you may be asked the question, God, why am

I here? Well, he wants you to be a Joseph,

that's why. That's why you're here. Well, no one else

is here? Well, because everyone else may be a henry

in your corner. And God wants you to lead, and

God wants you to run the race first so that

you can help the henries around you and guide them

in God's direction. Oftentimes God is trying to mature us.

And what will happen is when you run that race.

It maybe seems your life you go through great catastrophe

and great hardship, and you say, why am I divorced?

Why am I going through this? Well, what happens if

you stay faithful and you trust God. In many years

from now, you may meet someone else who goes through

a divorce and they see your faithfulness, They see how

you've loved God. They see how God has brought to

you everything that you prayed for, and God has increased you,

and they say how did you do it? And you're

able to say, I ran this race. Let me tell

you how faithful God has been. But the reality is

that you go through a divorce and you're on year

nine and they go, you go to church, you love Jesus,

you follow Jesus.

How have you gotten through it? And you're like, I don't.

Every night I just go God, why why am I here?

Ten years later?

Why am I staring?

The person looks and they're like, uh, I don't think.

I don't don't, I don't. I don't think God's gonna

do anything for me. Then, but when we say, oh, man, man,

it was hard, it was difficult, but God's faithful. He

was with me every step of the way. He gave

me strength, He sustained me. I was sick, and God

walked with me during the whole time I was broken.

God walked with me the whole time my house was disarrayed,

my kids were dead. But God's faithful. That's a testimony

that you can help lead other people in. Will you

stay in the race, Will you press on before God

calls you home? One day Jesus will call you home

and you will hear those precious words. Well, done good

and faithful service. Don't quit until you hear well done,

good and faithful servant. That's why we hear. That's why

we stay in the race, and we press on. And

you may be here today and you may have never

given your life to Jesus Christ. And before we leave

right now, as we leave here together, I just want

to make an invitation if you've never made Jesus Christ

your personal lord and savior. One day, every single one

of us will stand before God. What Jesus says is

he says powerful words to us when it comes to

standing before God. Jesus says that if you acknowledge me

before Man, then when you stand before my Father, I

will acknowledge you before my father. But if you reject

me before Man, I will reject you before my father.

Jesus also says that when it comes to salvation, he

stands at the door and he knocks on your heart.

Whoever would open and invite him in to eat with him.

He would eat with them.

But whoever would reject him, then one day he would

reject them the same. And so salvation is a gift

that God offers to everyone.

And for whatever reason, not every one.

Will say yes, it will be because possibly we doubt God.

It could be because we don't want to give the

things up that we know that God's going to call

us to give up, or maybe because we feel we're

not ready. But the reality is is God has made

salvation available to everyone.

The question is, will you choose to follow Jesus.

Will you recognize that you're fallen and that we're so

separate from God without Jesus, And if you desire a

relationship with God, will Jesus is the only one that

can bring you into true union with our Father. And

not only will we stand before God one day and

Jesus will welcome us with open arms for those that

choose to follow him, but also here on earth, God

will give you strength, God will give you peace, and

God will give you hope. It's not just about what

you get in heaven. It's also about what we desperately

need here on earth. Is we need the spirit of God,

and we need a touch of God. And by saying

yes to Jesus, you receive that touch from God, and

you receive the spirit of God, and you receive life

and life eternal. So if you're here today and you're

ready to take that step forward to follow Jesus and

confess him as your Lord and savior. Then I courage you.

Right now, we're all going to say a prayer. By

no means, the prayers not the thing that saves you.

God is already at work in your life. When we pray,

all we're doing is affirming at what God is already doing. So, family,

would you bow your head and close your eyes, whether

you're online, in the cafe courtyard, or in this room.

And for many of you, you're going to say this

prayer for either the first time or you're going to

rededicate your life. But however you do pray, we're here

to celebrate with you. Would you all join me in

this prayer of confession today? Would you say, Dear Lord Jesus,

in this moment, I confess you as Lord and Savior.

I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ died on

the cross and rose three days later. From this day forward,

I repent of my sins, and I turn to you

Jesus in Jesus' name.

Amen.